Kant
accepted the truth of Newton's mechanical universe BUT he wished to
reconcile it with the scepticism of David Hume, who believed that nothing
could ever be known with certainty. Thus, he tried - and some would say
succeeded - in integrating a subjective view of the universe as in being
human, art, intuition, religion and all that – WITH rationality. I can
see that he attempted exactly what I want to do: that is, to bridge
metaphysics [aka religious ideas] with the scientific worldview.

He believed that there is 'noumenon' [=
invisible and unknowable world as it really is], what I call
potatoes, and then there is phenomenon [i.e. the tangible world as
we see it and think it to be], what I call chips. He therefore believed
that potatoes become chips by passing through the filtering process of our
sensory apparatus, and mental processes, which convert actual world
[potatoes] into the world as we think it to be [chips]. Noumenon is the
deeper invisible source of the phenomena we can actually see. Thus, the
noumenal world is a hidden world we cannot see, but which is the world
as-is that creates upon our senses the impressions of the world as we see
it. The noumenal world can only be approached through our inner life,
through dreams, imagination and art.

Thus, the phenomenal worldview is necessarily an
incomplete or partial view of the noumenal world. First, the world we see
is *entirely* derived from sense impressions. Therefore, the world
we 'see' is a construct built up from these sense impressions. We can
never know the world 'as-it-is' in its real form [noumenal] - only via the
construct of sense experience [appearance, phenomenal]. Thus, our
knowledge of the world is partial, incomplete; it is a sense-derived and
thus a sense-moulded view. Now, that aspect of our knowledge of the world
is OK as far as it goes, indeed, science has described Newton’s
clockwork universe elegantly and accurately and about which it makes
accurate predictions for chemical and mechanical events. However, this is
the decisive factor, the rest of our experience - that lies outside of
that clockwork universe and which fails to comply with its rules - this
orbit of human experience - belongs to the inner realm of mind, thought
and feelings.

Well, Kant simply attempts to find an underpinning
belief system that can be thrown under BOTH and yet still keep them as
separate ‘running machines’ in their own spheres but also linked by
this connecting thread. His view connects matter to the realm of ideas.

Kant also believed that the mental apparatus of human
beings peculiarly moulds the worldview it generates and thus a distorted
picture is created, rooted solely in sense data beyond which we cannot
see. Thus, he raised the possibility of other worldviews. What Kant really
achieved was a way forward; he found a way to permit worldviews other than
[as well as] Newton's clockwork universe to be valid – parallel
universes. Thus, he paved the way for Hegel, who believed both could be
integrated even further.

In stark contrast to the claims of scientists, for Kant
"the world is not an objective fact independent of us, to be
defended or criticised as such. It is the product of the laws of our own
understanding." [Rogers, 378] Also contrary to the claims of
science, "Kant had come to the conclusion that space and time are
not objective realities, but are only the subjective ways in which we
cognize realities which in themselves are non-spatial and
non-temporal." [Rogers, 385] This almost sounds like Buddhism in
asserting that the perceived world is an illusion. Sense data, by which we
know the world, "must be subjected to…intellectual relationships
in order to constitute a world of definite things." [Rogers, 385]
The key phrase here is ‘world of definite things’ which according to
Kant our own thought and sensory processes construct rather than see out
there.

For Kant, the secret key to understanding how we
perceive reality resides, "not as something in nature, which is
then reproduced and known in our experience, but as something in
experience which itself constitutes what we know as nature."
[Rogers, 386] This probably means an aspect of our perception rather than
an aspect of the world itself. In other words, "it is only such
elements of reality as will fit the mould in which our intellectual nature
is cast that in any wise concern us, we can take the laws as absolute."
[Rogers, 388] Again, "real things are themselves constituted by
the relationships which make up knowledge," [Rogers, 389] rather
than in the relationships they may have in the outer world itself. This
subtle difference has profound implications for our understanding of the
world, because it means that our worldview is constructed from within our
heads and is not the ‘good copy’ we presume it be of a world outside.

The upshot is that the process or secret nature of
things resides in us and not in the things themselves. It is as if we
project a preconceived net of understanding or conceptuality out upon the
world of things, and through which we order and mould our experiences of
reality before they even arrive. We can only perceive reality through this
self-constructed net or filter. This obviously "implies a
different conception of the nature of objectivity and reality from the
common one." [Rogers, 389] The "real, noumenal world is
closed to our theoretical understanding. And the reason lies in what has
been found to be the nature of knowledge." [Rogers, 390] Again,
what this all shows is that ‘the objective’ and ‘the subjective’
are not the separate fields we ordinarily suppose them to be, but they are
interlocked in a dialogue by which we know things. Thus, what we know is
only what this dialogue ‘lets through’ to our understanding. It barely
deserves to be called ‘a good copy.’

It is important to consider Kant against the backdrop
of the problems he inherited from his three most important predecessors
– Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Kant’s position is a reaction against
their views and very largely derives from his attempts to solve similar
problems they had previously addressed. While Locke "had retained
a certain faith in the capacity of the human mind to grasp…the general
outlines of an external world," [Tarnas, 340] Berkeley maintained
that "all qualities that the human mind registers…are ultimately
experienced as ideas in the mind," [Tarnas, 334] that is "all
human phenomena is phenomenal, limited to appearances in the mind,"
[Tarnas, 335]. To Berkeley, therefore, all experience is reducible to "ideas
in the mind," [Tarnas, 336] and thus even the "existence
of a material world external to the mind is an unwarranted
assumption." [Tarnas, 336] Taking this even further, he then
maintained that individual minds are somewhat illusory and that the whole
world and one’s ideas are actually objects in the mind of God. What he
probably meant by this contention is that the material and mental worlds
are suffused with and underpinned by the divine, which is the sole
reality, the only true ‘substance’ anywhere in existence, subjective
and objective.

It is hardly surprising therefore, that "Hume
and Kant systematically refuted the traditional philosophical arguments
for God’s existence." [Tarnas, 309] God had thereby become "a
philosophical absurdity," [Tarnas, 309] even though Kant was
"highly religious himself." [Tarnas, 309] For him, God
was "an unknowable transcendent – thinkable, not knowable, only
by attending to one’s inner sense of moral duty." [Tarnas, 309]
Some concept which "neither human reason nor the empirical
world," [Tarnas, 309] could confirm. One "could not claim
that these inner persuasions were rationally certain." [Tarnas,
309]

Sources

Arthur K Rogers, A
Students History of Philosophy, New York: MacMillan, 1935

Richard Tarnas, The
Passion of the Western Mind, London: Pimlico, 1996